AI & ML

Google have released two new Edge TPU hardware implementations available for its Tensorflow Processing Unit. The machine learning chips can be embedded on dev board or bundled into a USB stick device. Both devices are due to be available in the Autumn.

The IBM Debater, a Watson AI powered debating platform, beat a human debater in San Franciso on June 17. The debate between Noa Ovadia, the 2016 Israeli National Debating Champion, and IBM Debater was on the topic of public funding for space exploration and according to an audience vote, IBM Debater sucessfully debate the for side of the topic.

Google unveiled Duplex at this year's Google IO. Duplex is a mind-blowing AI voice bot that can have conversations with real people in order to complete tasks like dinner reservations.
The examples are amazing, the system can deal with interruptions and can clarify details during the call in a realistic manner.Have a listen to the call below:

Researchers in Italy, on a project called In Codice Ratio, are using OCR and AI to begin to digitise hand written manuscripts from The Vatican Secret Archives. The challenge lies in creating an OCR system efficient enough in recognising hand written Latin script. The researchers have pioneered a mehtod called jigsaw segmentation, where a word is segmented into blocks analogous to pen strokes, as opposed to segmentation by letter.

According to Connie Chan, runners of the Shanghai marathon can use a facial recognition product to easily buy photos of themselves running the marathon, automatically sourced from every photo of the race.
Face recognition commercialization:

Researchers at The University of Washington have trained a neural network to act like a dog by feeding it video footage and audio from a gopro strapped to a dog. The model can predict a series of actions and movements that a dog makes given a start and end state.